Down Stairs
by Trefoil-underscore
Summary: A man walks down some stairs and reflects on what he would do if he weren't totally broke (unintended Fiddler on the Roof vibes.) Blatant OC fluff. Rated T for Rufert speaking Rufert language words (as in, Not Child Friendly Ones. You been warned.)


Rufert leaned against the balustrade and looked out over the city. From this height, it spread out in a blaze of color, rooftop gardens and flags, railed walkways arching from rooftop to rooftop like frozen rainbows, ripples of brightly-trimmed movement in the winding streets. Rufert and his fighting buddies had cleaned the zombies out of the shady spaces under the arches in this, one of the older parks. There hadn't been many, they had finished easily, and it was still daylight, with two and odd hours of downtime before their official shift started. Rufert had been here before, to clean up before a party, but he'd always had to leave at a sprint, crisscrossing the rooftops to clock in for his next zombie-stabbing shift, streetlights blurred and smoky under a haze of stars. This time they'd been called in at a reasonable time, and the open spaces of time, all his own, stretching out before him made him feel rich. This time, he would use the stairs. He walked to one of the stairways and paused. He'd never really looked at the structures, smooth planks fenced in with a sweep of smooth bannister, descending from a small gazebo draped with flowering vines. He descended the first few steps at a leisurely pace, taking time to appreciate the even, easily navigable distance between each step. Time. Only a few hours, but it was all his.  
If I was a rich man, he thought, what would I do first? Milk. Yes. Buy fresh milk, with the cream still in it. It had been a long time since he'd had any. He tilted his head back, imagining the cool, silky feel of it in his throat. He'd get Boyce his own jar. Did Boyce like milk? He wasn't sure, now that he thought about. He'd never given the cat any. He'd buy fish, he decided, enough for both of them. A big, sea fish of some kind, still alive. And he'd fry it in butter. Ooooooh. Butter.  
He reached a landing and paused for a moment, not because he was tired—walking down these very even stairs was no taxing task, especially to one whose job involved rooftop parkour and lots of melee fighting—but because he could. What sorts of spices went well with fish? Hmm. He'd heard of some people putting lemon on it. That seemed downright wasteful. Kiko could probably figure something out. He'd buy him his own fish. He'd like that. The others weren't getting any fish from him, though, after talking about his lovely pickled herring the way they did. He briefly indulged in a fantasy of Hell, Necro and Klyka moping because they didn't have any fish, then bestowed them with a nice, fatty roast to make up for it. And he'd buy a whole side of bacon. How long would that last? It depended on how thick you cut the slices… fuck it, we're going all out here, _thick_ slices for me thank you. Who the fuck eats thin sliced bacon? While he was at it, he'd get some bread, and no not the little brown dried up pieces of shit that took a month to chew, real bread. Perhaps some honey rolls. He'd had one of those once and they were quite good. Also, veggies, while we're at it, _fresh_ veggies. He quivered faintly with joy. Alright, enough of that. What else? Clothes. Right. Next thing, shirts, he needed more. Specifically he needed undershirts that actually had intact armpits. The one he was wearing now was mostly holes, which sort of killed the purpose of wearing it. His armor agitated his skin, which made him sweat, which made his armor smell pretty fookin' weird, which wasn't nice for anyone in the area, including himself. Better soap, he thought as an aside; he was sick of the caustic little pebbles they gave out at the showers. Maybe he'd even get some stained-glass spectacles like Syke had, and he could stop wearing his hair in his face like of fuckin retard. Besides, it was too obvious. Well, dark spectacles were if anything more obvious, but they looked nice. Nobody messed with void-eyed Guardsmen anyway. For one thing they were dangerous. For another, they were practically dead already.

He reached the street. Cracked stones, dimmer here, where the sun's slanting light got tangled up in the rooftops far away. It was mostly empty. The few people walked quickly, looking neither right or left.

"Are you alive?" said Klyka, striding up behind him. "What the hell was that? You took half an hour to climb down those stairs."  
"I am old man, forgive me," said Rufert. "Bad knees."  
"You're what, twelve?"  
"Nuh. I am old."  
"Pretty sure you're like twelve."  
"I haz beard."  
"No, you don't." Rufert scrubbed his chin against the side of Klyka's face. "What the fuck man?"  
"Haz beard." Klyka shooed him away with his particular brand of superior stare.  
"Just… stop."  
"Are you ready?" said Kikoskia, who was sitting, one leg crossed over the over, on a nearby crate. "We're getting food."  
Rufert's phantom fishes disappeared immediately with this offer of immediate and tangible food. "Ooh. Where?"  
Kiko shrugged. "There should be some vendors in the square still."  
"O0h! Yeah! It's still daylight! Hey, look at us, out in the day for once!"  
"It burns," groans Klyka.  
"They have beer," said Kikoskia, folding his arms with an amused head tilt. Klyka lifted his head.  
"Where? I'm listening."  
"Everywhere, you addict. Take it easy."  
"Where's Necro?" asked Rufert.  
"Gone."  
"Gone?"  
"He has a class in—" Kiko paused as a bell began to toll. "Well, right now."  
"Like a class in like the fancy school place thing place? How's he getting there?"  
"At top speed, I expect," said Kiko. Rufert felt sorry. While he was relaxing, Necroscope was dashing across the city, probably still in his armor, and his was the heaviest. And it felt odd to go out without him. He was the designated leader of the group. They could get along fine without him, but it felt odd.  
"So, we moving?" said Helloween, who had, at some point in the conversation, materialized behind Rufert, who jumped.  
"Oi. Scary man, stop doing that."  
Hell smiled. "Whatever. I'm hungry." Hell started across the street, and they followed. He detoured into the first alley, and they followed a shortcut devoted to darkened side streets and rat-tenanted alleys. Rufert had forgotten his daydreams. He was back in his element, with his friends by his side. And there was going to be decent real food things at the end of the road. This was alright actually.

"You know your pants are inside out, right?" said Klyka. Rufert patted his sides in surprise and felt prominent seams.  
"Aaaaaaurghh!"  
"Good job."  
"Fookin' mong. Why'd you tell me now? You could have just left it."  
"Ff." Klyka tossed one shoulder dismissively.  
"Well fine then Mr. Gentleman, I will not share my herring with you."  
"I don't want your herring. Give it to your cat."  
"I will. I will share it with Boyce and you will not have any." Rufert threw his head back, letting his bangs fall away from his darkened eyes. The sky was amazing in the day, one whole blaze of light, almost washed of color. Clean laundry fluttered against the shimmering surface that seemed to hang just above the rooftops. What Rufert considered to be an especially attractive cat trotted along a narrow railing and disappeared into a window. "Good day," said Rufert, shaking his bangs back down. "Dis good. Good enough."

 **A/N: I dunno, random oneshot about the Fighting 6** **th** **, specifically Rufert.  
So, uh, I'm back at school, and the route you take to a class is influenced strongly by how exhausted you are, how late you are, how many stairs there are on a particular route and how much you're carrying. I recently had a bout with some variety of plague which left me about 15 pounds lighter than I remember being, so I've been more than usually reluctant to approach stairs from the bottom. Walking down stairs, though, is alright. Especially if it's between classes and you actually have time to kill. Nowhere to sprint, nothing that has to be done in the next fifteen minutes, maybe even some money to get sugary coffee? Heaven.  
…So yeah, I randomly got this idea on one of the first days, and it… kind of has a basis? I guess? **

**These dudes have counterparts in the real world, who *DISCLAIMER* have absolutely nothing (except for the stolen/ahem, respectfully borrowed names) in common with my characters.  
Kikoskia: Kikoskia. My favorite LPer. Seriously he's great.  
Rufert: Rufert. He curses (as you've noticed,) but in a bizarrely whimsical way that annoys me less than it usually does, oddly. His Denmark-British Rufert Dialect must be heard to be believed. I cannot describe it.  
Klyka: Klyka1. I know less about him and have basically characterized him based on his characters in Kiko's Call of Cthulhu sessions. From the little else I've seen of him it seems accurate though. Except the alcoholic part, I mean, I have no basis for that. Pure CoC Character Traits (though it does seem to be a suspiciously common one.)  
Helloween: Helloween4545. Let's Plays exclusively survival horror. Probably insane. The kind of insane that never screams, just casually dismembers dead (virtual only, at least we hope) bodies while giggling about the sound effects.  
Necroscope86: Some other dude who does stuff. Wait no, he stopped recording to actually have a life. Loser. I mean, good luck, man. **

**Trefoil_: Some crazy fanfic woman. Has a policy to not write about YouTubers. Somehow has her Minecraft world invaded by a bunch of YouTubers. Gives up. Writes about YouTubers.**


End file.
